The current Ident Situation on YTV

As you recall, during January, Yorkshire Television dropped the 'live action' hearts idents, This was the last we saw of floor varnishers or fairground rides.

Since then, YTV continued to just use the Daytime/Normal 'lines' hearts Idents when there was a bit of time, and when it was a short junction, just the ident with the hearts spinning away in the background.

Well, in the last couple of weeks, I am aware that Yorkshire Television have dropped even the 'lines' idents now, and whether the junction is 5 or 15 seconds long, The short ident with spinning hearts is used all the time, with the announcer talking throughout it.

One reason for this, might be to simplify the junctions across all 3 channels, as we are getting 'Now on Yorkshire..' mentioned almost all of the time lately, The days of 'Now the news from around our region' are gone!

Also, The long version of YTV's local ident seems to have been dropped also (the one where the chevron appears 5 seconds in, and a version of the famous YTV tune is played). Before all regional programmes, even the main Calendar, the short version is always used (the Chevron is present from the start and a tune just plays along) with the announcer talking throughout with the spinning chevrons in the background.

I hope this is of interest.

Can anyone confirm if the long version of Tyne Tees' new ident has been dropped in favour of the short version?

Meridian look like they are going to show the live-action Hearts clips to their death

The most popular option here is live-action with no announcement. Which is nice, better than the anno rabbiting on! I still haven't seen that shiney coming up caption yet though

Cheers, Asa

It does appear that YTV have lost interest with the current idents and rightfully so, the generic hearts never were IMO very good. I would hope this is a gradual phasing out of these idents in favour of new shiny 'coming next' style hearts in the Autumn, but I can but dream.

I don't like the generic hearts look either, Carlton's is better, they way they use their hearts in various form, and then the star shining out from within to form the end look is brilliant.

I will have a look today to see if Tyne Tees are still using their long version, although it will be best to see on Monday before North East Tonight!

But of course someone might reply before then!

Did Tyne Tees launch the new generic ident with the correct logo on yet? And I thought Granada Media Group regions (and Carlton and HTV too?) were getting new, non-generic logos in Autumn. Tyne Tees might not though, although their local ident may well be used full time. I'm confident the logo will stay, only HTV is likely to change, due to their Carlton takeover.

I know that Anglia, whose presentation is co-ordinated by Meridian in Southampton, still uses the live-action films that precede the 'rotating blue hearts' background. Even with Anglia, there are some junctions where you see the sequence appear with no announcer voice-over (from Meridian)

ANTH I have noticed is that where time is tight before the next programme, the ident music, composed by David Dundas is not used, and you just hear the announcers voice linking into the next programme.

I remember though that the music is used on the links during night-time programming, in a similar way as Yorkshire, Tyne Tees and Granada use it for linking into programmes.

I occassionally notice a small error on YTV - the generic ident fades out too early and you see Granada's version. This has happened at least twice - before a 6.30pm news bulletin last year, and before Crocodile Dundee II a fortnight ago.

Can someone please explain all of this bad contiunity in Granada Land because LWT doesn't get this problem, now I know it is diffrent but could someone explain why thanks.

Granada, Yorkshire and Tyne Tees and Border(I think)continuity comes from Leeds, hence sometimes we end up with the wrong programme announcements, or we occasionally a Granada programme, popping up in Yorkshire!, but I think LWT still do their own(and you lot at LWT got a different ident, how come?)continuity.

Obviously the LWT pres. team thought very little of the 'tv from the heart of life' and very wisely created a 'hip and funky' perfect for LWT at the weekend, ident!

Cheers, Asa

I do like the LWT ident and the theme that goes with it, do we know who designed it ? They would have been better adopting that ident across the rest of the network, it's very funky.

AFAIK the LWT idents were designed 'in-house', i.e. by Leeds.
On the subject of continuity...
Granada, YTV and TTTV all link up with continuity, although Granada annoucements are more frequently live than the other two and hence more namechecks are on Granada than YTV or TTTV.

The LWT ident was only introduced because there were so many complaints about it, Granada, YTV and TTTV have not suffered from this so they haven't changed.

Anglia continuity is done from Southampton AFAIK and this occasionally means Meridian get the wrong 'Air Watch' etc.
LWT do continuity from London and therefore they do not suffer from the problems of GMG Northern Stations.

GMG say they like changing idents every 3 years.
And knowing them they will already have a set of idents ready for Granada, YTV, TTTV, Meridian and Anglia and will release them at the start of the autumn schedule.
They have done this in the past.
And of course we have the new HTV idents to look forward to, apparently coming in the next couple of weeks.